


Subsequently

by kneipho



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: After, Gen, Neflix, The Punisher, USS NoRomo, daredevil season 3 spoilers, my apologies, punisher post season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 18:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13173048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kneipho/pseuds/kneipho
Summary: By request, a short Punisher ficlet drawing on Punisher Season 1 material, and spoilers for Daredevil Season 3. A one-off (No new full-length stories until I finish the old ones). Trying to reconcile the Comic Book Frank I know, with the Netflix Frank I've come to love. My apologies in advance. Frank and "After." Non-canonical. Reworked.I make no money, here. I own nothing. I just like to play.





	Subsequently

He doesn't get an "after." Not the in the way she meant it. _Karen_. Men who exact unrepentant vengeance on a vast and bloody scale don't get an "after." Not like that, anyway. Some deeds a body can't escape, becoming a part of you. They alter you, stay with you forever. In his heart, he knew it. But Madani gave him a chance at life, and he had chosen live. So, he faked it, at least in part -for David, and for Curtis. For Karen. Telling himself, that if he went through the motions of normalcy long enough, he could convince them and, maybe, even himself into believing he might someday find a modicum of inner peace.

It worked for a while. Once a week, every week -for a good six months, he attended Curtis' group, meeting dutifully with other vets in an attempt heal his wounds and help transition back into civilian life. He rented a clean room in a decent neighborhood, worked on the regular for a landscaping company. He listened to music, read books in bed at night. He adopted a dog. His nightmares faded, as did his dreams of killing. Though neither ever wholly disappeared.

He accepted the life he lived in the name of Pete Castiglione; the identity more than a comfortable, self-preserving lie. Confined with that lie, buried deep within the marrow of his bones, lay Frank Castle, his true and altered nature. An annihilator in waiting spawned from unsanctioned governmental deceit, the slaughter of everything he once he loved, and a gunshot to the head. The wires in his brain, permanently crossed, thrumming on a daily basis with constricted violence. It was only a matter of time until they fused together, again, igniting into a raging bonfire that threatened to consume his soul.

\--

Then, Matt Murdock re-emerged. Daredevil rose from the dead, and Wilson Fisk smashed everyone's lives to smithereens. Frank Castle cleaned his guns, donned his vest and went to work.

On fire, filled with purpose, relieved.


End file.
